


I'll never smile again (until I smile at you)

by beesp



Series: Where is my mind [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Depression, F/M, Introspection, M/M, Masturbation, Multi, Psychological Drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-05-14 09:36:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5738653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beesp/pseuds/beesp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life in the new century is hard on Steve Rogers, especially because he's on his own. He has to readjust to a city he barely recognizes. He wanders around New York, he starts to draw again, but there's one constant thought in his mind, that he can't (nor won't) shake off.<br/>Beta: <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/liar">liar</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll never smile again (until I smile at you)

**Author's Note:**

> "I'll never smile again  
> Until I smile at you  
> I'll never laugh again  
> What good would it do  
> [...]  
> I'll never love again  
> I'm so in love with you  
> I'll never thrill again  
> To somebody new  
> Within my heart  
> I know I will never start  
> To smile again  
> Until I smile at you"  
> ("I'll Never Smile Again", Frank Sinatra)

The worst part about surviving was that he was on his own.

People tip-toed around him. Life ended when he submerged the plane in the Atlantic Ocean. Everything went dark, and water filled every space. It stung his lungs and his body, it was freezing. The light went out while his eyes locked on Peggy’s picture.

Now he didn’t have that compass anymore. He lost it at sea. But he found some other pictures of her. And some portraying Bucky, too.

Nothing was the way it used to. Life taught him never to feel sorry for himself and that’s why he tried not to think too much about what happened before 2012, when he woke up.

It was hard breathing new air, it was hard learning how things worked, it was hard connecting with anyone, because it seemed that no one spoke his language.

Brooklyn was completely different. One day SHIELD would let him free to go and he’d have to choose someplace else to live in, because New York was not affordable.

And still, he enjoyed rock music, he liked people, he liked wandering around and visiting his New York. There was something in the skyline that spoke to him. He looked at New York stars shining faintly in the sky at night, and he knew that seventy years were nothing compared to the history of Earth after all.

When he went for a walk, those were the best times, because he’d get to learn more about twenty-first century people. Couples wouldn’t kiss so out in the open in the Forties. If you were gay, you could only hide it. Now people did whatever they wanted. They kissed each other and they laughed and they used smartphones and lived their lives the loudest. He felt like he truly had won the war, (even though he had died before it ended) when he marveled at what the United States had accomplished.

He had always known that Bucky loved him. It was in the way he looked in his eyes (like nothing else mattered), the way he lingered when they hugged. Steve had decided to talk to him about it once the war was over — nothing but the war mattered then. When he was awake, he could only think about people being deported, his fellow countrymen fighting and dying. He kept dreaming countless soldiers dying — and they all had Bucky’s face.

When he had found him in one of Hydra factories, Steve wanted to kiss him on the mouth. He had promised himself, “After the war”. If he had given in, if he had taken what he wanted, then everything would have gone horribly. He had to wait, he had to earn his prize. Nothing had made more sense than the Bucky-shaped loneliness that he felt while his best friend was in Europe, fighting against hate and violence.

He had said to himself, “After the war”, and the war hadn’t let go of anything. He had lost everything but his existence.

When he started drawing again, he knew that he could survive. That hurt him a little. Like he was betraying everyone’s memory, like he wasn’t supposed to go on. He should have died together with his times. But he was alive and it hurt with every breath he took. He wasn’t going to give up, though.

His hand traced lines on a piece of paper while he was sitting on a bench, waiting for a bus. He had found a pen in his jacket and he draw a picture of Bucky and Peggy. They smiled at him from the whiteness of the background. They weren’t half as beautiful as he remembered them.

He thought about Peggy’s curls and Bucky’s lips all the time. His chest tightened with every image of them and he felt like he could never love anyone again. Not in that way, anyway.

It took him all of his courage to go and meet Peggy. She remembered him. She touched his face. Her eyes shone just as they did when she was younger. Steve could go to her and grasp her hand and tell her what was happening in his strange new life. If he gazed right at her eyes, he could feel like he was back in the Forties and Peggy and him were in love.

He told her about his drawings, he told her about Bucky. He knew he could speak to her about that, too. Peggy understood and pecked his hand. “I knew about you and Bucky, Steve” she smiled “and you can tell me whatever goes through your mind”.

But Bucky was nowhere to be found. He only had pictures of him and some old footage. At first he even went to the Smithsonian once a week.

After a week or so that he had been drawing, Steve could only think about Bucky. He tried to replicate the people he saw, but everything turned into Bucky. His smile, his eyes, his hair. He could even hear his laughter (that only happened when someone walked by while he was listening to “I’ll Never Smile Again” by Sinatra).

That made him realize that Steve could probably keep on living, but he was sure that nothing would ever happen — nothing that would’ve felt real, anyway — because he was alone (Bucky wasn’t with him). And that was definitely unhealthy and a bit pathetic — but he didn’t know how to properly live without Bucky.

He touched himself in the darkness of his bedroom, while the world was a loud noise, so far away. He thought about Bucky’s hands on his body. He laid in silence, not being able to fall asleep. If he had just been a little less stubborn, he could at least cherish Bucky’s taste. He had nothing, nothing had survived time, nothing but him. And everywhere around him were prints of what life would have been with Bucky.


End file.
